God offers grace to people even when they are unfaithful to Him. This is a Bible study teaching for “The Unfaithful Bride” on Hosea 1-3 from the “Explore the Bible” series from Lifeway.

Hosea is another one of the minor prophets. He was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel and began his ministry in the time of Jeroboam II.  The first verse in Chapter 1

1 The Lord gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

What we are reading in this book was given over a series of years. God had a plan for Hosea and the message that he was to give to the nation of Israel; however, Hosea wasn’t given the whole message at once. It took place over a series of years. As we are reading through this, we should keep this in mind. I’m sure that Hosea thought that the whole story was going to turn out differently when God began to give him instructions.

Last week, we ended the lesson in the book of Jonah. In Jonah’s case, he saw the impact and the result of his message quickly. This is not true of Hosea, I read that Hosea’s ministry took place over 30 to 40 years. Like many of the other prophets, Hosea was speaking to the nation during a time of safety and when they didn’t have anything to worry about. As we will see, Hosea is prophesying a warning of a judgment, one that came to pass. He also promised a restoration, the fullness of which we still have not seen.

This is another one of those lessons where the given lesson plan takes bits from chapters, the lesson plan only includes verses 2 through 9 in chapter one, skips chapter 2, and then includes five verses of chapter 3. I’m going to read all of the first three chapters. One, because I don’t think it is a good practice to cherry pick verses to suit a particular context. And the second reason is that there are some very powerful verses in the parts the official lesson skips over. Continuing with verse two:

2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Israel worshiping pagan gods

Normally, I read from the New Living Translation. This is the New International Version. The reason I chose this translation is because the NLT describes Gomer a little differently. It says that God told Hosea to marry a prostitute, other translations like the NET also translate it this way, but there is actually quite a bit of debate about it. One commentator wrote that if she was a prostitute in the way that we think of it, there would have been a different Hebrew word used. Some commentators translate it as a “woman of promiscuity” and think that it referred to her participation in pagan worship which included fertility rites. Also:

Some have sought to soften this command by indicating this woman was not immoral when he married her but would later become immoral. However, all indications are that Hosea was to marry a woman who already was known for her immorality. This was the heart of the message Hosea would preach to his people— that God came to them when they were immoral and loved them through their unfaithfulness.^[1]

Just has Gomer was both unfaithful and unworthy when Hosea chose her, so we are when Christ died for us.

Continuing on

4 Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

There is quite a bit of symbolism in this name and there was quite a bit of information in the teaching guide about the significance.

Jezreel was an uncommon name for people during that time. It was the name of a valley and a town within that valley, located between the mountains of Galilee and Samaria. Its name means “may God make fertile,” signifying God’s bountiful blessing of produce that came from the region. The irony of this name is that Israel had turned to fertility cults and had forgotten that it was the Lord—not their false gods—who had blessed them with all that they had.

Jezreel repeatedly had been a place of bloodshed in Israel’s history. The judges Deborah and Gideon both fought battles there (Judg. 4-7). Saul and his sons prepared for the battle against the Philistines that led to their deaths in the Jezreel Valley (1 Sam. 29:1; 31:1-2). Jezreel was part of Ish-bosheth’s two-year kingdom in opposition to David (2 Sam. 2:8-10).

Jezreel was the home of Naboth, against whom Jezebel drummed up false accusations so she could give his vineyard to her husband, Ahab (1 Kings 21:6-14).

Jezreel was also the place where Jehu killed Joram, the king of Israel, and mortally wounded Ahaziah, the king of Judah. Moreover, Jehu had Jezebel, Joram’s mother, thrown from a window, then he rode over her bloody body with his horse, and left her corpse to be eaten by dogs before she was to be buried (2 Kings 9:16-37).

Jehu had been sent by God’s prophet, Elisha, to execute judgment on Ahab’s dynasty because of their egregious sins, especially the sin of idolatry. At first Jehu opposed Baal worship (2 Kings 10:18-28), but eventually he followed his predecessors’ wicked ways, leading the people to continue in their idolatrous practices (2 Kings 10:29,31). Jehu failed to learn the lesson of Jezreel. Therefore, Hosea’s son, Jezreel, represented the judgment that would come upon the kingdom of Israel in general and specifically upon the house of Jehu, of which Israel’s present king, Jeroboam, was a part.^[2]

Another definition of the name “Jezreel” is “God Sows”

6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”

Israel, like Judah, considered themselves God’s chosen people. They were also the large of the two nations. The 10 tribes, including the largest, made up the nation of Israel, while Judah was smaller. But at the very beginning of the northern kingdom, they had rejected coming down to Jerusalem to worship, and instead stayed at altars that had been set up in the Northern Kingdom.

8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

They were already separate from God. They were worshipping pagan Gods and did not know him. The judgment God is proclaiming is one that they have already chosen.

10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

But in spite of all of this, in spite of Israel’s apostasy and God’s judgment against them, he is promising a restoration. Verse 10 is referencing God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants will be “like sands on the seashore.” (Genesis 22:17) God is saying that the promise will still come about, but we have in this prophecy an indication that the plan is much bigger than the physical descendants of Abraham or one nation.

Paul references Hosea here in Romans 9

23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;

and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

26 and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,

‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Paul makes it very clear that this is a prophecy of not only God drawing Israel back to himself, but that he will draw the Gentiles to him as well.

Chapter 2

“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.

I think sometimes that as Christians, we are like Israel. We think that because we belong to God that we can get away with whatever we want. The Old Testament shows us the nature and character of God. It shows us both his justice and righteousness.

In the last lesson that I gave, we talked about the word “mishpat” which is translated both as justice and judgment. In order for there to be justice, God must judge.

In order for him to be righteous, he cannot be in fellowship with what is unholy. We have to be willing to turn from our sin. In this passage, God is illustrating that he will allow Israel to experience the consequences of her actions. And those consequences are also experienced by the descendants of the ones who heard Hosea’s words.

4 I will not show my love to her children,
because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
and has conceived them in disgrace.

She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my food and my water,
my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.

Then she will say,
‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.’

God is saying that he will “block Israel’s way with thornbushes.” That’s pretty descriptive isn’t it? Instead of their paths being made straight, they will run into hard times and obstacles.

8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.

9 “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
intended to cover her naked body.

10 So now I will expose her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers;
no one will take her out of my hands.

11 I will stop all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers;

I will make them a thicket,
and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the Lord.

every good thing comes from the Lord, honoring him with the first fruit of our harvest

This is really an indictment for ingratitude isn’t it? When the Israelites were bringing offerings, they were giving thanks to the one who had provided it. God had provided their abundance, but instead they were offering it to pagan gods.

14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

Verse 15 is the reason that I wanted to read this chapter. What a promise. The “Valley of Achor” can also be translated as “The Valley of Trouble.” God is promising that after all of this, that he will transform this Valley of Trouble, troubles brought about because of the actions they chose, into a “Door of Hope.” This is a promise of God’s goodness. That in spite of the mess that we bring upon ourselves, that he is always ready to transform that trouble into hope.

16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’

17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.

Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.

19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.

20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.

21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”

I’m going to comment on this last part, but I want to continue on to Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

The end of chapter two is a prophecy of the Messianic kingdom when the Jews will recognize Jesus as Lord. This is a promise of “the last days.”

Hosea was instructed by God to put a physical representation of both how Israel had betrayed God, but of God’s faithfulness to them. The reference to the “sacred raisin cakes” is a reference to Baal worship. Somehow in Gomer’s adultery, she had sold herself into slavery, she had put herself under obligation. Hosea how to buy her out to free her, he had to redeem her, which is what Jesus does for us.

Just as Gomer was unworthy of the relationship and position Hosea offered her when he married her, we are unworthy of the gift of salvation. Hosea continuing forgiveness to Gomer is an illustration of God’s willingness to forgive us.

This Bible lesson was originally taught by Carla Alvarez on October 16, 2022 in the Kingdom Citizens Bible study Class at the Second Baptist North campus in Kingwood, Texas.

Endnotes

^[1] “The Unfaithful Bride,” Explore the Bible, Session 7, Personal Study Guide, Lifeway Christian Resources, 66.

^[2] Ibid.